The Dodgers have done it again. Last year I did a game by game diary of the World Series. Fortunately, I didn’t do that this year. It would have been too crazy. I don’t know where to start. I guess I’ll just start with the title of this post. When they won in 2020, it was Party Like It’s 1955 because it was the longest wait for the Dodgers to win a World Series since they won their first World Series in 1955. Last year, it was Party Like It’s Later in 1981 because they beat the Yankees like they did in 1981 and it was the first year since 1981 that my favorite basketball team and baseball team won championships in the same year (the blog post for the Celtics winning the championship was Party Like It’s 1981). I’m going with Party Like It’s 1965 because that was the last time the Dodgers won Game 7 of the World Series. Although this won’t be a post with immediate reactions to each game, I’ll break it down by sections because it’s going to be long and you might not want to read the whole thing.
The Road to the World Series
I saw the Dodgers in Los Angeles at the beginning of July. The next day Clayton Kershaw got his 3000th strikeout. Things were going well for the Dodgers. And then they played pretty terribly for the rest of the summer. After last year, I wasn’t too worried about it. They played terribly for much of last summer (I was there for a low point in their season last year). I thought they would get it going at some point and they did. They had a disastrous road trip to Pittsburgh and Baltimore to start September when they lost the first five games (including losing a game where Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one out away from a no-hitter). But starting with the last game of that road trip, they were really good for the rest of the season. Unlike last year, it wasn’t good enough to get a bye in the first round. That first round is scary. They were much better than the Reds, but I saw the Dodgers lose plenty of stupid games against bad teams this year. They could have lost two out of three to the Reds and their season would have been over. But they won the first two games and didn’t have to worry about an elimination game. The Phillies were their toughest test in the National League. The Dodgers won three out of four to get to the NLCS. That series was much closer than three out of four would suggest (the Phillies scored more runs in the series). The Brewers had a better record than the Phillies, but looking at their roster, I didn’t think they were as good. The Phillies had better hitters and better pitchers. But still, the Brewers swept the season series against the Dodgers (six games in July when the Dodgers were playing terribly). Things were different in the NLCS. The Dodgers gave up only one run in each of the four games and won a pretty low-stress series. With that, they were on to the World Series against the Blue Jays.
The Dodgers won two out of three in the regular season against the Blue Jays, but the Blue Jays had a better record by one game so they got home field advantage. The Blue Jays were really good. I thought the Dodgers were better, but I definitely thought the Blue Jays had a chance. The Blue Jays beat the Mariners in seven games in the ALCS. I was rooting for the Mariners for four reasons. The Dodgers would have had home field advantage. None of the games would have been played in Canada. None of the games would have been played on artificial turf. And I thought the Blue Jays were better than the Mariners. Weirdly, every previous time when one championship series was a sweep and the other went seven games, the team that went seven games ended up winning the World Series (including the Dodgers in 1988). The Dodgers finally changed that history.
Games 1 and 2
The World Series got off to a bad start with the Blue Jays winning Game 1. It was close, but then the Blue Jays scored nine runs in the sixth inning. During my lifetime, the Dodgers had only lost Game 1 of the World Series once. That was in 2018 and they lost the World Series in five games against the Red Sox. The Dodgers have won the World Series three times after losing the first two games on the road. But still, you have a really uphill battle if you lose the first two and then have to win four out of five. The Dodgers responded in Game 2. The game was tied 1-1 going into the seventh inning. The Dodgers scored two in the seventh and two in the eighth. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched his second consecutive complete game and the Dodgers won 5-1 to tie the series.
Game 3
Game 3 was one of the best baseball games of all time. After solo home runs by Teoscar Hernandez and Shohei Ohtani, the Blue Jays scored four in the fourth to take a 4-2 lead. The Dodgers tied it in the fifth on an RBI double by Ohtani and an RBI single by Freddie Freeman. The Blue Jays retook the lead in the top of the seventh, but Shohei Ohtani hit another home run in the bottom of the seventh to make it 5-5 (he ended up with a record-setting game of 4 for 4 with two home runs, two doubles, four intentional walks, and one semi-intentional walk). After Ohtani’s second home run, the next ten innings were scoreless. The Blue Jays had two good chances that were taken away by Tommy Edman making great plays. After making a costly error in the fourth, Edman made a fantastic play in the ninth. After a ball hit off Freeman’s glove, Edman chased it down and threw out the runner who was trying to go first to third for the second out of the inning (that description doesn’t do the play justice). In the tenth inning, I thought the Blue Jays were going to take the lead on Nathan Lukes’s double to right field, but Teoscar Hernandez made a good throw to Edman and Edman’s relay throw to home easily got Davis Schneider for the third out. The Blue Jays loaded the bases with two outs in the 12th inning. Dave Roberts brought in Clayton Kershaw to face Nathan Lukes. I was hoping for Clayton Kershaw closing the final game of the World Series with the Dodgers having a big lead. Roberts brought Kershaw into a terrible situation because he didn’t have much of a choice. They needed to get that out so he brought in the lefty to face Lukes. There was no wiggle room. If Lukes reached base, that meant at least one run was in and Vladimir Guerrero was coming up. The count went full (Kershaw got squeezed on a pitch that should have made it 1-2 earlier in the count). And then Kershaw got Lukes to ground out to Edman (Edman had to make another good play on a slow grounder). And that was the final appearance of Clayton Kershaw’s career. We’ll come back to him later. The Dodgers missed some chances to score and had some long fly ball outs that looked like they might be home runs. The Dodger bullpen (their biggest weakness) was fantastic. They pitched 13 ⅓ innings and only gave up one run. Will Klein was an unexpected hero, pitching the last four innings because he was the last guy in the bullpen. With Yoshinobu Yamamoto warming up in the bullpen for the 19th inning after pitching a complete game in Game 2, Freddie Freeman led off the bottom of the 18th with a home run to win it and it was amazing. The Dodgers won Game 3 in 2018 in 18 innings on Max Muncy’s home run. That game was on a Friday night. This was a Monday night. It lasted 6 hours and 39 minutes and ended a little before 3:00 Eastern. And I stayed up for the whole thing. I have absolutely no regrets.
Games 4 and 5
After winning a game like that to go up 2-1 in the series, I was dreaming of the Dodgers winning the next two and celebrating at Dodger Stadium. That was not to be. The Dodgers lost 6-2 in Game 4 (it was close until the Blue Jays scored four in the seventh) and then lost 6-1 in Game 5. That meant that they had to win two games in Toronto to win the series. They needed one more two-game winning streak (after having winning streaks of four, five, and two games in the playoffs). I had a feeling that they would do it. I had the same feeling when they were down 3-1 against the Braves in 2020. I did not have that feeling last year when they faced two elimination games against the Padres. Why did I have confidence this year? They had Yamamoto pitching Game 6. And I thought that they would finally hit enough to win. After scoring 18 runs in two games against the Reds, they had only scored six runs in one other playoff game (and it took them 18 innings to do that). I thought they were due. As it turned out, I was sort of right. Yamamoto got the job done in Game 6. They hit well enough late in Game 7 to win it.
Game 6
The Dodgers got off to a good start in Game 6. Will Smith drove in a run with a double in the third. Two batters later, Mookie Betts drove in two more with a single to make it 3-0. Betts really struggled at the plate in the series, but he got the biggest hit of this game. The Blue Jays got a run in the third on an RBI single by cheater George Springer. And that was all the scoring for the game. But the game was much more exciting than that makes it sound. Yamamoto pitched six and allowed one run. He was at less than 100 pitches, but he wasn’t as sharp as he was in Game 2. Roberts was probably influenced by what happened in all of their losses in the series. The starter pitched pretty well, but then ran into trouble in the sixth or seventh inning. Justin Wrobleski pitched a good seventh and then Roberts went to Roki Sasaki to try to get the last six outs. Sasaki was shaky. He allowed two runners to reach in the eighth, but got out of it without any damage. He didn’t get anybody out in the ninth. He hit Alejandro Kirk to lead off the inning. Then he gave up a double to Addison Barger where the ball got stuck between the bottom of the wall and the ground. Justin Dean wisely put up his hands and didn’t try to dig the ball out. It was a ground rule double. That saved a run (which didn’t really matter because they were up by two runs), but it also prevented Barger from getting to third. With the tying run on second and nobody out, Roberts went to Tyler Glasnow (who was in line to pitch several innings in Game 7). Glasnow got Ernie Clement (who seemed impossible to get out in the playoffs) to pop out to Freddie Freeman. Then Andres Gimenez hit a shallow fly ball to left field that would often fall in, but Kiké Hernandez was playing pretty shallow. As the ball was in the air, I could see the double play coming before it happened. Hernandez caught it with his momentum going toward second base and threw to second to get Barger before he could get back to the base. Tyler Glasnow had thrown three pitches and gotten three outs to get out of the game and we were going to Game 7.
Game 7
Game 2 was kind of forgettable. Game 3 was one of the greatest games in the history of baseball. Game 6 was a very good game with a crazy ending. Game 7 ended up being even better than Game 3. Despite being played indoors on artificial turf in Canada, I think it is officially my favorite game of all time in any sport. Why? It featured a pitcher hitting, a great Dodger comeback, extra innings without stupid Rob Manfred rules, and the Dodgers winning the World Series. I wore my Sandy Koufax jersey over my 1955 World Series Champions shirt in honor of the Dodgers’ previous World Series Game 7 wins.
Shohei Ohtani started for the Dodgers on short rest. The Dodgers hadn’t announced it, but I realized before Game 6 that Ohtani was going to start in Game 7. Because it was Game 7, he was going to pitch. He had to either start or finish the game or the Dodgers would lose him in the lineup when he came out of the game as a pitcher. They couldn’t take a chance on waiting to have him close the game so he had to start. He led off the game with a single. He was the first Dodger pitcher to get a hit in the World Series since Orel Hershiser went 3 for 3. Unfortunately, he wasn’t great as a pitcher. I have been a Dave Roberts supporter and he’s been masterful the last two years, but he left Ohtani in too long. I was hoping for at least six innings between Ohtani and Glasnow (probably 2-3 from Ohtani). He got through two innings scoreless, but he gave up a single in the first (he faced the minimum because the inning ended on a strikeout/caught stealing double play) and a walk and two singles in the second. He wasn’t at his best. With the top of the order coming up in the third, I wouldn’t have let Ohtani face them again. It didn’t go well. A single, a wild pitch, and an intentional walk led to Bo Bichette’s home run to give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead. Fortunately, between Game 6 in 2020 and Game 5 in 2024, Dave Roberts has plenty of experience managing a pitching staff in a game where the Dodgers could win the World Series and the starter didn’t get deep into the game. He got an inning and a third out of Justin Wrobleski, two and a third out of Glasnow, and an inning from Emmet Sheehan. That got them through seven innings. Blake Snell pitched the eighth and got one out in the ninth. I’ll get to the rest of the game later.
After falling behind 3-0, Teoscar Hernandez drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the fourth and Tommy Edman drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth to make it 3-2. The Blue Jays answered in the top of the sixth with an RBI double by Andres Gimenez to make it 4-2. Max Muncy hit a home run in the eighth to make it 4-3. Trailing by one going to the top of the ninth, I still thought the Dodgers had a decent chance. It felt a little like when they were trailing by one going to the bottom of the tenth in Game 1 of the World Series last year. It was 8, 9, and 1 coming up for the Dodgers. So Ohtani was guaranteed to get a plate appearance and it would only take one baserunner for Will Smith to get a plate appearance. But the inning did not start well for the Dodgers. Kiké Hernandez struck out and the Blue Jays had a 91.7% chance of winning at that point according to ESPN. Still, Ohtani was going to get to hit. But it wasn’t Ohtani that was the hero, it was Miguel Rojas. Rojas has been a very valuable player for the Dodgers the last two years, but it wasn’t because of his power (he had seven regular season home runs this year and they were all against lefties except for one off of a position player). Rojas worked the count and I remember thinking that a home run would be ideal, but a walk would be pretty much as good as anything else. If he got a double or triple, they would just walk Ohtani. So a walk would be terrific. With the count full, Rojas homered off of the Blue Jays’ right-handed closer Jeff Hoffman. The Dodgers were still alive, but that was all they could get in the ninth.
The game would end up in extra innings, but before it could get there, the Dodgers had to get through the bottom of the ninth. Getting it to the bottom of the ninth was a great success for the Dodgers. But once you get to the bottom of the ninth in a tie game (and the bottom of any extra inning in a tie game), the home team has a huge advantage. The home team can win the game without getting another out. The road team has to get at least six more outs to win the game. Vladimir Guerrero led off with a fly ball to deep center. It reminded me of Mike Piazza’s fly ball to center in the World Series in 2000. Considering how terrifying Guerrero was, I thought it was gone. It ended up not being that close to going out (he hit it 377 feet to center) and it was caught for the first out. But then Blake Snell allowed the next two to reach on a single and a walk. Going into Game 7, my plan for the Dodgers’ pitchers originally was Ohtani and Glasnow for at least six and then Snell and Sasaki to finish the game. Of course, it ended up being much more complicated than that. Earlier in the day, I talked to my brother Tom on the phone and he mentioned Randy Johnson pitching in Games 6 and 7 of the 2001 World Series. The thought of Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitching in Game 7 hadn’t occurred to me, but when he mentioned that, I was like, oh yeah, that’s happening. And it did. With one out and two on, Roberts went to Yamamoto. It wasn’t smooth, but it worked. Yamamoto hit the first batter he faced to load the bases. With the World Series winning run on third and only one out, Dave Roberts replaced Tommy Edman in center with Andy Pages because Pages has a stronger arm. With the infield in, Daulton Varsho hit a grounder to Miguel Rojas. Rojas kind of had to stumble backwards, but he was able to get up and throw home for the second out. The Blue Jays challenged and it seemed at first that the throw had clearly beaten the runner (not by a lot, but it got there before the runner did). Then I saw something that terrified me. Will Smith’s foot came off the plate. That would have been such a terrible way to lose the World Series, but on closer inspection, it was clear that Smith got his foot back down in time before the runner could get there. The Dodgers were still alive. Ernie Clement (impossible to get out) was coming up. He hit a long fly ball to left center. It looked like it should be Kiké Hernandez’s ball, but he was playing shallow and had a long way to run. I thought he was going to get there, but Andy Pages came flying in and ran Hernandez over and made the catch. I think Hernandez probably would have caught it if Pages wasn’t there. If neither of them caught it because they collided, that would have been another terrible way to lose. Hernandez stayed down after Pages ran him over. I thought he was hurt. Hernandez later said that it was because he thought they lost the World Series. The inning was over and we were going to the tenth.
Fortunately, there was no magical runner on second base for no reason in extra innings. Whoever was going to win would have to earn it. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the tenth with one out on two walks and a single. It was looking pretty good, but they ended up not scoring. So the Dodgers still had to get at least six more outs to win. Yamamoto took care of the three outs in the tenth quickly. It was the first time all game that the Blue Jays didn’t have anybody reach base in an inning.
After two groundouts to start the 11th, Will Smith hit a home run to give the Dodgers their first lead of the game. Vladimir Guerrero led off the bottom of the 11th with a double. After a sacrifice bunt and a walk, it was first and third with one out. With Clayton Kershaw warming up in the bullpen, Alejandro Kirk hit a ground ball to Mookie Betts. Kirk runs slowly, but it wasn’t an easy play. Betts took it to second base himself at kind of a weird angle and then threw across his body to first for the double play. In Game 6, the Blue Jays had the tying run on second and the game ended on a double play. In Game 7, the Blue Jays had the tying run on third and the World Series winning run on first and the game ended on a double play. The Dodgers were World Series Champions once again. And they did it by winning one of the greatest games of all time. The Dodgers hit .203 and the Blue Jays hit .269. The Blue Jays outscored the Dodgers 34-26. The Blue Jays outhit the Dodgers 75-53. The Dodgers made three errors in the series; the Blue Jays made none. If you knew all those numbers and nothing else, you would think the Blue Jays won the series in six or seven games. But the Dodgers found a way to win the series.
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| It wasn’t the first championship I’ve seen the Dodgers win. It wasn’t the best Dodger team to win a championship. It wasn’t against the Yankees. But this is my favorite Dodgers championship of my lifetime. |
I was hoping for a low-stress series like the NLCS. After winning Game 3, I was really hoping that the Dodgers could win it at Dodger Stadium in five games. But I also had the thought that they were either going to win it in five games or the series was going to end on a Friday or Saturday night. Their previous two championships were won on weeknights and I had to go to work the next day. I didn’t mind that at all, but winning it on a Saturday night was awesome. I enjoyed a Sam Adams Summer Ale (my favorite beer), a Brooklyn Lager (in honor of the Dodgers’ Brooklyn roots), and a Sam Adams Octoberfest (because I didn’t have to go to work the next day). I watched the coverage on Fox and MLB Network. I remember staying up late in 2020 after they won and deciding to go to sleep after watching an interview with Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler. This time, I decided to go to sleep after watching an interview with Clayton Kershaw around what would have been 3:00 if not for daylight savings time ending. The end of daylight savings time was also very convenient because I had an extra hour to get to Mass the next day.
I liked watching the Celtics and Dodgers winning championships in 2024 with very little stress, but this series is why people are sports fans. You dream of watching your team win a series like this or a game like Game 7 and the Dodgers did it. The Dodgers’ last three wins were completely crazy. There were so many amazing moments that a World Series game winning home run in the 18th inning in Game 3 almost gets lost in the shuffle. The series in general and the Dodgers’ last three wins in particular were so stressful, but it was worth it.
The MVP
There’s no MVP given out for the Division series, but I definitely would have picked Roki Sasaki. Shohei Ohtani was the MVP of the NLCS. And their other Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto was the clear World Series MVP (in a World Series with lots of heroes). In Game 7, the Dodgers used six pitchers and Yamamoto got more outs than anybody else. He ended up 3-0 (the first pitcher ever to win three road games in one World Series) with a 1.02 ERA in 17 ⅔ innings. In the 2001 World Series, Randy Johnson was 3-0 with a 1.04 ERA in 17 ⅓ innings. Yamamoto was excellent for the Dodgers last year in the postseason, but he was so much better this year. It made me think of how my least favorite guy who played for the Dodgers ever, Josh Reddick (he did absolutely nothing for the Dodgers after they traded for him in 2016 and then he cheated with the Astros in 2017), criticized the Dodgers for giving Yamamoto $325 million. His opinion was about as valid as his 2017 championship. Yamamoto is going to be second or third in the Cy Young this year and I have no objections to that. But he’s the best pitcher in the world right now. If you had to win one game, Yamamoto is the guy you want pitching.
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| I think if you’re ranking World Series performances by Dodger pitchers, it’s Sandy Koufax in 1965 first, followed by Yamamoto this year, Johnny Podres in 1955, Orel Hershiser in 1988, Sandy Koufax in 1963, Larry Sherry in 1959, Claude Osteen in 1965, Clayton Kershaw in 2020, and Burt Hooton in 1981. I’m setting a minimum of 10 innings pitched. Without that, you could also add Don Drysdale in 1963, Yamamoto last year, and Walker Buehler in 2020 and last year. I also didn’t look at years that the Dodgers lost the World Series. They probably had some really good pitching performances in some of those years also. |
Clayton Kershaw
For a long time, I was dreading Clayton Kershaw’s retirement. He’s my favorite athlete of all time. For much of his career, I was worried about him not winning a World Series. He should have won it in 2017, but the Astros cheated (Kershaw was great at home in that World Series when the Astros weren’t cheating, but they stole Game 5 from him so beating George Springer this year was nice). Kershaw finally won the World Series in 2020 and he was excellent in Game 1 and very good in Game 5 of that World Series. Last year, he won a World Series where he was pretty much just along for the ride. Because of injuries, he was 18th on the team in innings pitched and he didn’t pitch in the playoffs. So he didn’t do much, but it was kind of like the World Series ring he deserved from 2017. This year, he was not just along for the ride. He was second on the team in innings pitched and wins (behind only Yamamoto in both categories). He was fantastic in August and then tailed off a little bit in September. He really helped the Dodgers get through the summer when they were dealing with injuries to Snell, Glasnow, and Sasaki. He only made two appearances in the postseason this year (he might have made more if the NLCS had been more competitive). In his first appearance, he pitched a scoreless inning. That should have been all for him, but the Dodgers were down a reliever because Tanner Scott was unavailable. So Kershaw pitched a second inning and it wasn’t good at all. But there are two things to point out besides the fact that ideally he wouldn’t have pitched in that second inning at all. First of all, they probably weren’t going to win that game either way. Second of all, pitching that second inning meant that the Dodgers didn’t have to use Emmet Sheehan, Roki Sasaki, and Alex Vesia. Those were the pitchers they used to pitch the last five innings of the 11-inning Game 4 against the Phillies where the Dodgers won 2-1 to win the series. He only made one appearance in the World Series, but it was to get the biggest out of the first six games of the series and he got it. I’ll give credit to Dodger Talk host David Vassegh. Going back to the regular season, he had been talking about how David Cone was on the Yankees’ postseason roster in 2000 to get one out and Kershaw might be used like that. Cone got Mike Piazza out with the Yankees up 3-2 with two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the fifth in Game 4. Kershaw got Nathan Lukes out with the score tied with two outs and the bases empty in the top of the 12th inning in Game 3. So between the regular season and the World Series, Kershaw did his part to help the Dodgers win the World Series. I thought I would be sad when Clayton Kershaw retired, but I am not. I am just happy for him. He ends his career with another World Series Championship. He played his entire career with the Dodgers and I got to watch it all. It was wonderful. The greatest Dodger of all time is between him and Sandy Koufax. Clayton Kershaw will be in the Hall of Fame and he should have a statue at Dodger Stadium someday.
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| It was a great end to a legendary career. Clayton Kershaw was the greatest pitcher of his generation and a three-time World Series Champion. |
Dave Roberts
I have been a fan of Dave Roberts going back to his time as a player. I was mad when they traded him to the Red Sox in 2004 (he could have played the role for the Dodgers that he did for the Red Sox). He’s been excellent as a manager. While I think he left Ohtani in too long in Game 7, he’s been masterful the last two years in the playoffs. Last year, he found a way to win the World Series with two and a half starting pitchers. This year, he found a way to win the World Series with great starting pitchers, but a bad bullpen. I wonder how long it will take Dodger Talk callers to want him fired next year. I’m giving it until a bad stretch in June some time. I think most Dodger fans appreciate how good he has been now, but there are always the crazies. Dave Roberts will be in the Hall of Fame and the Dodgers will retire his number someday.
The Dodgers’ Championships
The Dodgers are now tied with the Red Sox and A’s for third place with nine championships (behind the Yankees and Cardinals). Since integration, it’s Yankees 17, Dodgers 9, Cardinals 5. Since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, it’s Yankees 10, Dodgers 8, Cardinals 5. That got me thinking of how I would rank the Dodgers’ nine championships. This isn’t based on how good the teams were. It’s more a combination of what the experience was like and what the championship means to the team and/or me. Let’s count them down from 9 to 1:
9. 1959- People who live in Los Angeles and who are old enough to remember it might disagree because it was their first one in Los Angeles. Looking at the team, it’s loaded with Dodger royalty. It was the last championship for Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. It was the first one where Sandy Koufax played a big role (this was before peak Koufax, but he was third on the team in innings pitched). It was the first championship for Don Drysdale. So why do I have it last? It was against the White Sox and they weren’t playing at Dodger Stadium yet.
8. 1981- Maybe if I was alive for this one it would rank higher. The Dodgers beat the Yankees after losing to them in 1977 and 1978. But it’s kind of a weird time in Dodger history. The only Hall of Famer on the team that year was their manager Tommy Lasorda. But it’s the championship for Fernando Valenzuela (he was on the team in 1988, but he got hurt and didn’t pitch in the playoffs) and the infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, and Cey.
7. 2020- You could make a good case for this one to be lower. It was a short season and they didn’t get to play in front of fans until the neutral site NLCS and World Series in Texas. But it ended their longest wait for a championship since they won their first one. It was the first championship for Clayton Kershaw after the World Series disappointments of 2017 and 2018. And I was aware of the Dodgers winning the World Series in 1988, but this is the first one that I can really remember.
6. 1963- It’s hurt by the fact that it was too easy. The Dodgers swept the Yankees (the only time they’ve swept the World Series). Sandy Koufax had just started completely dominating baseball.
5. 2024- They got to play the Yankees for the first time since 1981. It had the Freddie Freeman grand slam to win Game 1. It had the comeback to win Game 5 with Blake Treinen and Walker Buehler providing heroics on the mound. But this one was a little too easy also.
4. 1988- Everybody expected the Dodgers to lose. It has an even better home run than the Freddie Freeman grand slam with the Kirk Gibson home run to win Game 1 (I’d rank it ahead of Freeman’s because it was so unexpected, or as Vin Scully called it, impossible). Once again, Tommy Lasorda was the only Hall of Famer for the Dodgers, but Orel Hershiser was at the peak of his powers.
3. 1965- It was the last championship for Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Koufax pitched shutouts in Game 5 and Game 7. But it was a weird group of hitters for the Dodgers. Maury Wills was their best position player and led the league with 94 stolen bases. But they only had three players with 10 home runs (Lou Johnson and Jim Lefebvre led the team with 12 each).
2. 2025- It was seven games. You had the 18-inning win, Clayton Kershaw’s last World Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s heroics, winning the last two games on the road, and the comeback in Game 7. It’s hard to rank ahead of Sandy Koufax pitching two shutouts in the last three games, but I think this pretty clearly does. If it was close, it would still get the edge because 1965 is before I was born and because this team will have more Hall of Famers than 1965 (Koufax, Drysdale, and Walter Alston). This team will have Kershaw, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Dave Roberts. And there might be more than that. Those guys are locks. We can’t rule out Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Will Smith for the Hall of Fame yet (they have a lot of work to do, but with good health and hopefully some more championships, there’s a path for them to get to the Hall of Fame). Blake Snell has won two Cy Youngs, but he’s 32 years old and has a career record of 81-62. He’s a very good pitcher, but he’s not going to the Hall of Fame.
1. 1955- This one means the most. It was their only championship in Brooklyn. After losing to the Yankees in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, they finally beat the Yankees to win the World Series. And they did it by winning Game 7 in Yankee Stadium (after the home team won the first six games) with Johnny Podres pitching a shutout. Both teams were loaded with Hall of Famers. The Yankees had Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, and Phil Rizzuto. The Dodgers had Walter Alston, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Sandy Koufax (who didn’t play in the World Series), Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, and Duke Snider. Even though I wasn’t alive for it and Sandy Koufax didn’t play a role and there was no Clayton Kershaw or Shohei Ohtani, this is pretty clearly number 1.
Updated All Jim Team
I have to make some updates to some recent blog posts. I just updated the All-Jim Team. I have to update it again. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has earned a spot. Will Smith’s home run and his whole career to this point has to get him a spot as well. Mookie Betts has been the toughest omission. After three championships with the Dodgers, he’s in. And Dave Roberts has to be the manager. That means I have to take some guys off. Tommy Lasorda is being demoted to bench coach (I love Tommy Lasorda, but Roberts has won more championships now and one of Lasorda’s came before I was born). Yoshinobu Yamamoto could take Roy Halladay’s spot. But I never meant for the team to just be my favorite Dodgers. So I’m going to take Dodgers off. As much as it pains me because he’s the best relief pitcher in Dodger history, Yamamoto is getting Kenley Jansen’s spot. Mookie Betts is getting Justin Turner’s spot. And Will Smith is going to take Roy Campanella’s spot. So here’s the starting lineup:
Ken Griffey Jr. CF
Mookie Betts 2B
Babe Ruth RF
Ted Williams LF
Freddie Freeman 1B
Will Smith C
Corey Seager SS
Jackie Robinson 3B
Clayton Kershaw P
I had to get a little creative because I don’t have a true third baseman with Mookie Betts replacing Justin Turner. Betts has played three other positions more than second base, but he’s played 118 games there and he became a very good shortstop this year so he can handle second base. Jackie Robinson is best known as a second baseman, but he played 256 games at third base. He played six different positions in his career and third base was his second most common position.
Here’s the full 25-man active roster:
Starting Pitchers (5): Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Orel Hershiser, Shohei Ohtani
Relief Pitchers (6): Roy Halladay, Johnny Podres, Walker Buehler, Jeff Samardzija, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mariano Rivera
Catchers (2): Will Smith, Yogi Berra
Infielders (5): Jackie Robinson, Corey Seager, Freddie Freeman, Derek Jeter, Lou Gehrig
Outfielders (6): Ted Williams, Ken Griffey Jr., Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Duke Snider, Hank Aaron
Utility (1): Mookie Betts
Manager: Dave Roberts
Bench Coach: Tommy Lasorda
Updated Favorite Sports Moments
And in August, I came up with my top 25 sports moments. I think we have three additions. There are a lot to choose from. Two rules come into play here. I said they have to be specific moments, not entire games or sequences. So I can’t put Shohei Ohtani’s Game 4 of the NLCS or his Game 3 of the World Series on the list. And I limited it to one moment per game. The last three wins for the Dodgers had so many moments I could choose from, but I can only pick one per game. Here’s what we’re adding:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto getting Alejandro Kirk to hit a ground ball to Mookie Betts for a double play to win the World Series. There are so many moments to pick from in Game 7. There’s the Miguel Rojas home run with one out in the ninth to tie the game. There’s Yamamoto getting Daulton Varsho to hit a ground ball to Miguel Rojas with the bases loaded and one out and Rojas making a tough play to get the force out at the plate. There’s Andy Pages running over Kiké Hernandez to make the catch in deep left center on Ernie Clement’s fly ball (the exit velocity was 101 and it went 366 feet) to send the game to the tenth inning. There’s the Will Smith home run in the 11th to give the Dodgers the lead. If it had been two outs and nobody on and the Dodgers won it on a ground ball to Betts, I wouldn’t pick that moment. I really don’t know which one I would pick from the possibilities I mentioned. But the Blue Jays had the tying run on third and the winning run on first. And suddenly the game was over and the Dodgers were World Series Champions once again. Kirk was a slow runner, but it wasn’t the easiest play for Betts to field it and take it to second himself and get the out at first. Betts made it look easy though. This was not his best year, but he turned into a fantastic shortstop and he got the biggest hit of Game 6. He deserves a lot of credit. I’m putting this moment at number two on my list behind Freddie Freeman’s grand slam. And it’s really close to number 1.
Kiké Hernandez making the catch and then getting the out at second for the double play to end Game 6. Miguel Rojas made a tough catch at second base to complete the double play. It looked like the Blue Jays had a great chance to tie Game 6 and suddenly the game was over and we were going to Game 7. This one is going to end up at number 5 on the list, sliding in between Ray Allen’s drive to seal Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals and Christian Gray’s interception of Drew Allar in the Orange Bowl.
Clayton Kershaw getting Nathan Lukes to ground out with the bases loaded and two outs in the 12th inning of Game 3. Obviously I could have picked Freddie Freeman’s home run in the 18th to win the game. But I already have Freddie Freeman hitting a game-winning World Series home run on the list. And I already have an 18th inning home run to win a World Series game on the list with Max Muncy’s home run in the 2018 World Series. Kershaw was brought into the game in a terrible spot with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on deck and he got the biggest out of the first six games of the World Series in the final appearance of his career. It was awesome. This will be the new number 12 on the list, sliding in between Clayton Kershaw’s Opening Day home run and the Ian Book 53 pass to Avery Davis to set up the game-tying touchdown against Clemson in 2020.
The Championship I Still Need
Last year, I got to see the Celtics and Dodgers win championships. When I wrote the blog post about the Dodgers, I finished by saying that there was still a chance that Notre Dame could win a championship also. I said it was a long shot, but we had a solid chance to make the playoff. We got all the way to the championship game. Well, once the Dodgers are World Series Champions and Notre Dame has a solid chance to make the College Football Playoff. I’ve been able to enjoy two championships for the Celtics and now three championships for the Dodgers (they’ve both won four during my lifetime, but the other ones were before I was five years old). Notre Dame has won one national championship in my lifetime, but it was when I was four years old. It’s the one thing I’m missing as a sports fan. I would love to see Notre Dame win the national championship in men’s basketball, but I’m okay with that not happening. I used to be a huge Jets fan. It would be really cool if they won a Super Bowl, but I’d be more happy for my brother Sean and other Jet fans that I know than I would be for myself if they won. I still root for the Rangers in hockey, but hockey definitely ranks behind the other professional sports for me. And they did win the Stanley Cup when I was 10 so I do remember that. If they won again, I would be more happy for my friends who are Ranger fans than I would be for myself. I hope to see plenty more Celtics and Dodgers championships, but Notre Dame football is the one I still need as a sports fan. Once again, it’s a long shot this year, but it’s not impossible. Going back to the title of this post, 1965 was not a championship season for Notre Dame, but 1966 was. If I have to wait another season for Notre Dame to win a championship, that would be fine. Hopefully it’s coming soon.
God Bless America.
Go Irish!
Thank you Dodgers.
